One Ohio student makes it to Scripps National Spelling Bee finals

Thursday

May 29, 2014 at 12:01 AMMay 29, 2014 at 6:51 PM

WASHINGTON - Nineteen Ohioans began the Scripps National Spelling Bee Tuesday. Now it's just down to one. Fourteen-year-old Ashwin Veeramani of North Royalton, near Cleveland, will compete in the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee tonight, airing live on ESPN at 8 p.m.

Fourteen-year-old Ashwin Veeramani of North Royalton, near Cleveland, will compete in the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee tonight, airing live on ESPN at 8 p.m.

The three other Ohioans to make it to Thursday’s semi-finals — including 14-year-old Max Danner of Lewis Center — were eliminated early Thursday afternoon.

Danner, an Oakstone Academy eighth grader sponsored by Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication, nailed his two words on stage today, only to be felled by a computer test that he’d taken Wednesday night aimed at narrowing down the finalists.

Sitting on stage Wednesday and today was “pretty nerve-wracking,” he said, but each time he was given a word, the nerves fell away.

Today, he correctly spelled “retrorse,” which means to bend backward or downward and “ pneumatocyst,” a submerged or exposed root.

Getting to the bee, he said, “was pretty exhilarating.” He said he’s worked for six years to get to the bee. He was accompanied by his mother, Julie, his father, Jay, and his older brother, Alec, a ninth-grader.

Because he’s an eighth grader, it’s his last year of eligibility. What will he miss?

“The self-esteem that comes with fulfilling a goal when you’ve been working so hard and so long,” he said. “And the happiness when you spell a word correctly.”

Only 46 out of the original 281 spellers made it to the bee semifinals. Danner on Wednesday correctly spelled “mandir,” a Hindu temple, and “sufflaminate,” which means impede, to survive the preliminary rounds of the bee.

A second Central Ohio speller, Kyle Ayisi, 11, of Pickerington, was eliminated Wednesday after correctly spelling two words at the microphone but being felled by a computer test.

It’s the 87th year for the bee, which began in 1925 with nine contestants, taking a three-year break during World War II. This year, 281 contestants hail from across the country as well as from the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.

The winner of the bee will receive $30,000 in cash, an engraved trophy, a $2,500 U.S. savings bond and a complete reference library from Merriam-Webster and reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica.